I am NOT asking for medical advice - etc. No one posting in this thread is my doctor, etc. I am looking for similar experiences...

So - minor nerve damage - is there anything to be done? I was lifting a bunch of plastic grocery bags (yes, I have reusable bags; these were for the spillover groceries). A heavy bag or two slipped down my finger and it hurt - kinda like when you carry too many bags and it feels like you are cutting off your circulation.

I now have a little bit of numbness at the tip of that finger - and it has been a few days. No other issues - never swelled, no discoloration - nothing. No real reduction in function - I can do everything I need, even play guitar. Just a bit of numbness remains on one side of the tip.

Have you experienced this? I guess I am assuming that I bruised a nerve and it just needs time to recover.

Why yes! I did the same thing, not by a slipped bag, but carrying too heavy bags for too long up against a single joint without switching hands/fingers. The plastic handles had turned into a garrote.

When the finger tip was still completely numb after a couple weeks I went to my doctor, who was a little put out I didn't come in sooner. He felt I compressed/damaged/severed a nerve and that it may .... or may not .... repair itself. Not clear what he could have done if I came in straight away. He said nerve regrowth is slow.

So I waited, and waited. Maybe four months later, I started getting feeling back, and I did completely recover.

So those plastic bags can really do damage beyond temporary finger reddening. I take a lot more care how I carry them now.

Thank you for that anecdote and yes, that is what it feels like have experienced, both in terms of the nerve issue and what a doctor would say...frustrating, but as you say, nerve damage can take time to heal...

I cut off the very tip of my finger putting a bedframe together, and after it healed, I found that past the scar, I had no feeling.

Until about six years later, when all of a sudden the feeling reappeared.

So, yes, nerves can regenerate, but they do take a looooooong ass time.

Or never - I had a similar injury to the tip of a finger 30+ years ago. Had to get stitches to get the skin flap held in place. It's still numb.

My son sustained some nerve damage from a broken arm (nasty-looking displaced fracture of his upper arm) at age 4 - couldn't make a pincer motion to touch thumb and forefinger tips together. The orthopedist noted that, and said that such injuries often recover with time. Fortunately in my son's case, this did happen within the year.

I had a student bite me hard on the lowest knuckle of my thumb (where it joins the hand). It was intensely painful (yes, moreso than a regular human bite). My whole thumb tingled frequently in the months that followed, but it eventually completely healed.

I've done something like that with the bags. Some numbness for several days. I think there was internal swelling that had to go down before the feeling returned. I remember first getting some that pins and needles things before the feeling came back, as if my finger had been asleep the whole time.

After some dental surgery, I had no sensation in the very tip of my tongue for a few days. No taste, no awareness of temperature. On maybe the 4th day I could feel a *little*, by the 7th I was as good as new.

My husband has a similar anecdote to one above (couldn't feel big toe) - except in my husband's case, he somehow didn't notice that he'd bought shoes in the wrong size. Then he put the same pair of shoes on every day until he couldn't feel a toe. It must have scared him, because that is the only time he's seen a doctor as an adult. (If I sound patronizing, it's only because I'm insanely jealous that he could get away with wearing one pair of shoes for everything and with everything.) Same outcome as above as well - ~3 months later, everything was normal again.